U.S. Military Lost In A Sea Of PowerPoints

The New York Times reports on our military’s obsession with PowerPoint presentations — and suggests that overuse of the alternately vague, simplistic, and confusing slide shows contributes to questionable decision-making and a separation from reality. Does PowerPoint hold some small share of blame for the Iraq War?

“PowerPoint makes us stupid,” Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps, the Joint Forces commander, said this month at a military conference in North Carolina.

“It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,” General McMaster said in a telephone interview afterward. “Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”